


The Last Ones Standing

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Read My Lips [39]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Crossover, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6518677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: <i>Any, Any, Well I can barely breathe / And I can hear the dark hearts marching  / I won’t go down easily / Stay here by my side / And we will be the last ones standing</i>. Tag to Enemy at the Gate. Teyla POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Ones Standing

Teldy, Teyla, Rodney, Lorne, and John were crouched in the corridor of the hive ship. They needed to get to the power core of the ship, overload the ZPM and then get out before the ship blew.

Teyla could barely breathe. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Ronon lying too still, blood flecking his lips, telling them to _Go. Just go._

She was no soldier, but she was a warrior, and living under the shadow of the Wraith had taught her how to lose people.

But Ronon was one of her dearest friends, one of the fiercest men he knew, and she’d never thought his sun would set before hers.

And then a voice came over the radio.

“Stargate Command, this is McNeil. Look, I don’t have much time before this place is swarming with Wraith, so I’m arming the nuke.”

Lorne’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but then Rodney was speaking and Lorne was signing one-handed for John.

“Did he just say ‘nuke’?” Rodney demanded.

Teyla nodded dazedly.

Jonathan said softly, “Just do me a favor, Sam. When Atlantis gets here, tell them I said goodbye.”

Rodney toggled the button on his radio. “McNeil!” he said sharply. “This is McKay! Stop what you’re doing!”

“Rodney?” Jonathan sounded incredulous.

Lorne lifted both hands off his weapon to sign faster.

John’s eyes were wide with confusion. He was asking questions too fast for Teyla to understand, though she caught a _why_ and a _how_. Lorne shook his head, didn’t answer, kept signing.

“Yes, I’ve got Teldy and Teyla and John and Lorne with me,” Rodney said.

“The hive is about to attack Earth,” Jonathan said, and Teyla closed her eyes.

She could hear them, numberless dark hearts beating the last of their rhythms, songs about to fade into eternal silence.

“I know that,” Rodney said impatiently. “Let us come to you. We can rig up a remote detonator.”

“What’s the point? We’re all stuck on this ship,” Jonathan spat.

“There’s a gate,” Lorne burst out suddenly. “We can gate to Atlantis or - or to Earth. Please, Jonathan.”

Teldy cast him a quelling look, because he wasn’t the military commander of this mission; she was. “McNeil, I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here, but I’m glad you are. McKay’s plan is a solid one. We’re on our way.

“Yes ma’am,” Jonathan said, and Teyla had never been so glad to hear the wry twist to the way he spoke to anyone who outranked him. “I’ll defend my position until you get here. Hurry.”

“We’ll be there ASAP,” Teldy said.

Teyla opened her eyes. She heard the urgency in his voice, saw stark terror in Lorne’s eyes before he swallowed it down and signed rapidly to John.

“There’s a perfectly good reason Jonathan was called back to Earth and is here now,” Lorne said. “But we don’t have time to talk about it now. We have to go.”

Teldy raised her weapon. “I'll take point. Teyla, you take our six. We’re going to the hangar bay. John, Rodney, stay in the middle. Lorne, watch them.”

“Yes ma’am,” Lorne said. He signed to John, who nodded and raised his weapon. Rodney had learned to do as Lorne sometimes did on the rare occasions John went off world, keep one hand on John’s right shoulder and use his right hand to hold and fire his sidearm. Rodney slid into place automatically, hand on John, gun raised. He was breathing hard.

“Go,” Teldy said, and they moved forward as one. 

They fought their way to the hangar bay. Every shot fired, every enemy footstep was one more beat in the steady march toward death. Teyla had once been sure that no matter what, Teldy’s team would always come back to Atlantis. Ford had run, had been lost, but not to death, not in battle. But Teldy, Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney would always come home.

Until they didn’t.

They made it to the hangar bay and saw one of the 302’s there. Jonathan McNeil was The Cryptographer, a prodigy with Ancient technology due to his strong ATA gene, and the scientists had been excited to have him on board, see what he could do with his Ancient know-how and his aerospace engineering skills. Building fighter jets wasn’t the same as being able to fly them.

But the cockpit opened, and Jonathan launched himself out, landed. The flight suit they’d found for him was ill-fitting, had the wrong name on it (O’Neill), and he looked so, so young.

“How did you even get here?” Teldy demanded.

Teyla and Lorne held the perimeter while Rodney and John tackled the nuke, slapping together a remote detonator with shaking hands.

“I flew here, ma’am,” Jonathan said. He was carrying a side-arm, which he checked and cocked as easily as any marine. “Where’s Ronon? You never go anywhere without him.”

Teyla swallowed hard. “Ronon didn’t make it.”

Jonathan’s face paled, but he nodded once, sharply, and Teyla wondered how many friends and comrades he had lost in his young life. “I bet he didn’t go down easily.”

“He did not,” Teyla said and was breathless for one moment again.

“I won’t go down easily. None of us will. We will be the last ones standing after this ship blows.”

“You’re awfully confident, kid,” Teldy said.

“Not my first rodeo, ma’am.” Jonathan smiled wryly at her, and then he darted a sideways glance at Lorne.

“McNeil,” Rodney snapped, “you’re an engineer. Stop playing soldier and get over here.”

Jonathan nodded and went to help John and Rodney, holding things, handing things, shrugging when Rodney swore at him.

“Finally!” Rodney slid out from under the jet and stood up, grabbed his weapon. “Let’s go.” He held out a hand, pulled John with him, and they stayed holding hands as Teldy shuffled them back into formation, scientists in the middle, soldiers and warriors on the perimeter.

Teyla saw Jonathan reach out and catch Lorne’s hand for a brief moment, squeeze, and then Jonathan was just was alert as any soldier, hovering behind Rodney and John as they moved through the corridors of the Wraith ship.

Teyla thought of Kanaan and Torren, waiting for her, and silently apologized for letting them down. This war against Earth wasn’t hers, but the Wraith war against Pegasus hadn’t been theirs, hadn’t belonged to Rodney or Teldy or Lorne or John, and Jonathan had been right: they would not go down easily.

Not in this galaxy or any other.

So when they burst into the gate room, Teyla opened fire, listened to Wraith die, and ignored Rodney and John panicking over the DHD.

Just when she was about to give up hope, the Wraith in the doorway keeled over, and there was Ronon, alive and well and grinning, Wraith blood dripping from his favorite knife.

“Didn’t think I was that easy, did you?” He kicked the Wraith corpse as he passed. “So, what’s the hold up?”

“Hold up?” Rodney squawked, indignant.

And then John shouted aloud, “Go!”

The ring of the ancestors filled with pure blue water, and escape was imminent.

Teldy shoved Rodney, John, Jonathan, and Lorne through the gate without hesitation. She nodded at Teyla and Ronon, and they headed for the gate.

The last thing Teyla heard before she stepped through the vent horizon was the click of a remote detonator, and then she was home.


End file.
